


Maintenance

by x_los



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-10
Updated: 2008-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:11:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Think of it as an <i>Axos</i> AU ending, only without Earth-death. Utter fluff. The Master is <i>not</i> annoyed by the Doctor's choice to spend all his time mucking about with their common-property TARDIS. Except for how he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maintenance

Title: Maintenance  
Rating: PG  
Author: [](http://x-los.livejournal.com/profile)[**x_los**](http://x-los.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: Three/Delgado!Master  
Prompt: 28-Grease, from [](http://best-enemies.livejournal.com/profile)[**best_enemies**](http://best-enemies.livejournal.com/) ' table challenge  
Beta: [](http://aralias.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://aralias.livejournal.com/)**aralias** hates the word complimented. Why? No idea, ask her yourself, she's lovely.  
Summary: Think of it as an _Axos_ AU ending, only without Earth-death. Utter fluff. The Master is _not_ annoyed by the Doctor's choice to spend all his time mucking about with their common-property TARDIS. Except for how he is.

The Master had restored the Doctor’s mind to all its chaotic, disorganized glory, and the Doctor hadn’t stopped exercising it ever since. The Master supposed it was necessary for him to test his limits after being confined, in the way lions loosed from zoo cages yenned to rush out and stalk prey, but three solid days of TARDIS repairs seemed excessive. For seventy two exasperating hours, only interrupted by brief kips and briefer inhalations of sustenance, the Doctor had buried himself in the guts of his— _their_ TARDIS. He fiddled with her, singing snatches of songs to himself, muttering. Occasionally he’d call out for a part if the Master was in the room, thanking the Master politely enough when the metal hit his palm and then returning to his work. It was - mildly irritating.

Not that the maintenance was poorly done, or even unnecessary. The Master rather approved of the way the machine was shaping up. She purred, rumbling around them like a pleased cat at all the attention, at the Doctor’s cooed praise. How very sleek she looked with her new interior setting, how smoothly she moved with her rotors tweaked just _so_. What a dear thing she was, and how efficient she’d be, once he installed this exciting new retrograde time-thread weaver.

The Master could tell the Doctor was rebuilding their severed bond, familiarizing them with each other, and that their intimate connection was probably something he’d sorely missed. But that the Doctor had chosen to pay all those hours of attention to his— _their_ —ship rather than his recently reacquired lover was - the Master mentally amended his ‘mildly irritating’ to -‘completely infuriating.’ If he started lying to himself on a regular basis he would become that much more indistinguishable from the Doctor, and he had no intention of morphing into half of one of those nauseating couples that even _looked_ like each other.

Gritting his teeth against inevitability, the Master, reclining on the room’s new chaise-longue, turned a page in the novel he was reading,

It was a little sick, wasn’t it, that he found the Doctor’s _humming_ to himself in that ludicrous, incessant manner a little endearing? He could have been reading in the library, with its high ceilings and long windows. Their ‘glass’ time-compressed the red-shifting points of the stars into ever-lasting daylight—a pleasant glow, quite conducive to his chosen pastime. Right now, he could be enjoying perfect illumination, complete silence, and the cup of tea he’d accidentally left there when he’d gone to choose a book. Instead he was here in the console room’s sterile glare, and that tea was going cold, and he’d rather let the TARDIS clean it up than return to it. Shouldn’t it be nauseating, that he simply enjoyed a room more when the Doctor was in it?

The Doctor harrumphed in frustration at something from under the console, charmingly indignant with the “blasted binary cortex.” Yes, the Master concluded, finding your lover’s irritation with machines _sweet_ was inarguably sick.

The Doctor gave a triumphant “there!” This led to the Doctor arching his hips and sort of _wiggling_ them to reach something. The Master glared at their obscene jauntiness and forced himself to look away. In the back of his mind he was keeping a constant tally of who initiated what. So far: Doctor-5, himself-7, all pre-TARDIS frenzy. He was not going to appear either needy or desperate. It was the Doctor’s turn. Let him make the first advance.

That this plan entailed waiting until the Doctor deigned to touch him was the canker in the tree. Much better to focus on the décor than the black-clad, horribly tempting thighs. They’d gone with something a bit Earth influenced (without being aesthetically offensive) for the console room. Though the Master had naturally given the Doctor his ration of mockery about exile not having managed to fully cure him of his obsession, he didn’t dislike the arrangement. It was bright without being stark—though he saw now that he’d have to correct the sub-par lighting at some point—with Meiji period Japanese hints (excepting the pure Victoriana of the longue). The settings had been chosen after a surprisingly cordial argument that resolved itself with shocking ease.

They were getting on almost disconcertingly well, though he was starting to wonder whether he’d have to go and blow something up to wrestle the Doctor’s undivided concentration away from the damn ship. It was a good thing he hadn’t tried to bring that modified Ford 103E popular of his onboard, or the Master might not have seen him for a century. The Master hadn’t been impressed with the Doctor’s silly, shiny modified roadster, and he hadn’t looked up the model and its specs—ah, there was that Doctorish internal dishonesty again: cropping up like a cancer you thought had gone into remission, never to return. But he was no less prone than his nemesis—er, partner—to salivating over well-executed customizations. And driving such an audacious, impossible to ignore canary yellow vehicle was just so thoroughly _like_ the Doctor, who couldn’t even be bothered to make his TARDIS blend in with its surroundings and still wouldn’t let the Master fix the chameleon circuit, that he’d had to roll his eyes and find himself undeniably taken with it.

“There!” The Doctor slid out from under the console with enviable grace in a firm push. He sat up, tossing and catching in his right hand the one lone, left over wing nut from his efforts. “You know, I think that about does it.” He grinned widely at the Master. “She’s in better shape than the day I liberated her, aren’t you old girl?” He turned to rap fondly on her deck plating, then pushed himself up to stand.

The Master put aside his novel. “New components, freshly coded programming—”

“And thank _you_ for that. Neatly done,” the Doctor arched an eyebrow a touch saucily, and the Master flashed a quick smile. It showed he was well aware of exactly how immaculate his work was, how brilliant and surprising the turns of his logic, how well he’d done. He so loathed slipshod results and besides, his favorite audience was watching him perform, spurring him on with every little impressed look, each tiny noise of appreciation.

“I should think she’d hardly recognize herself, she’s been so altered in the past days,” the Master finished.

“Rather like a regeneration,” the Doctor smiled, coming over to lay a hand on the back of the longue and lean over the Master, bringing their noses quite close, a lock of his work-mussed white hair spooling down to nearly touch the Master’s face. “You might have helped me with the mechanical bits rather than sulking about like the wicked fairy not invited to the christening, you know.”

“You didn’t ask,” the Master defended himself, trying not to look embarrassed at being caught out. “And it was your TARDIS. Overhauling her was your pet project. I assumed you wanted to be let alone while you devoted yourself so very _entirely_ to it.”

The Doctor chuckled. “What an odd thing to assume. And here I thought—based on all the times you’ve ended up working alongside me in the past months, you see—that you might enjoy a little collaboration.” One of his knees had somehow ended up on the longue, and the Doctor was leaning over, arms braced on either side of the Master’s head. The Master leaned back indolently, luxuriating in the attention like a cat getting petted. “I think you just dislike getting dirty,” the Doctor accused.

“Mm,” the Master chuckled, toying with the neck of the simple white T-shirt the Doctor had spent the day working in so as not to dirty one of his extravagant silk shirts or elegant jackets. He pinched the collar between his fingers, dragged his palm down across the soft fabric covering the Doctor’s torso, feeling the warmth of the skin under the thin-worn cotton. “That’s it exactly. Well done, Doctor. That’s why I lead a woefully closeted life. I’m dependent on routine to see me through uncomplicated days which hold no threat that my person might be sullied by, oh, hazardous chemicals, vengeful aliens, etcetera.”

The Doctor laughed. “Oh you poor, poor shut in. Well, are there any other cruelly neglected systems I should start working on now that I’ve finished?” The Doctor asked it with a raised eyebrow, shifting his weight to straddle the Master, knees framing the smaller man’s hips.

“That’s a _terrible_ innuendo, Doctor. And you’ve grease all over your nose,” the Master pronounced, wrinkling his own nose expressively. “A great smear of it. And your hands.”

“Must have dripped down from the manifolds,” the Doctor surmised, not even a little embarrassed. He pressed his lips to the Master’s, lightly. “Do you mind terribly?”

The Master smiled against the Doctor’s lips. The Doctor smelled like engine lubricant (oh, and his hands were covered in it—well, wasn’t that the most convenient thing since the Matrix?). He was a delightful mess from having been at work all day. The Doctor had spent his time more concerned about not crossing the wires that would made them explode into never having been alive to explode in the first place than the state of his hair. Which was catastrophic—he had a bad habit of ruffling while he worked, as if the answers to the problem he was facing were bound to fall out from their secret hiding place among the curls if he tugged determinedly enough. The Doctor was grinning like an idiot.

“I don’t believe I do,” the Master conceded. He halted the Doctor’s downward advance with a finger pressing into the Doctor’s chest. “Though in the future, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pull marathon tinkering stunts and leave me to my own devices for days on end, only to fall into bed not fit for anything but inarticulate grunting at me when I try and ask how it’s progressing. Are we clear, Doctor?”

The Doctor lightly rubbed his oil-splattered nose against the Master’s in a light kunik. “Sorry about that,” he muttered sheepishly.

“Actions speak louder,” the Master quoted airily, and he hissed more airily still when the Doctor responded by pulling down the Master's collar and fixing his mouth to the Master’s neck, sucking hard at the vulnerable point where throat flowed into shoulder. The Doctor’s grease-slick hands were dirtying the Master’s crisp, clean black jacket in their attempt to divest him of it. The metallic smell was never going to wash out of his clothes. Abruptly the Doctor succeeded in fighting off the coat, and the Master was far too busy to care.  



End file.
